When I was a little girl I had three women that I admired. They were all fictional characters, but I thought they were awesome. I wanted to grow up to be just like them.

The first one was going to be pretty impossible; Wonder Woman’s a hard act to follow and I knew I wasn’t up to the task. Of course in my own way I guess I could claim to be a wonder woman-I’m a mom with a career and a home to run. (Okay, maybe not that sexy outfit, but I would love those great golden bracelets.)

But the other two characters that I loved were a bit more realistic, and I let myself dream of the possiblilites…

The first was Nancy Drew. She was my hero when I was younger. She was the cool girl; she had best friends that stuck by her side, a gorgeous boyfriend and she solved mysteries. Her dad was pretty cool, too. What more could a young preteen hope to be when she grew up?

But, as I grew older, I realized Nancy Drew never grew older college age. I began to dream about what kind of job/career I wanted, so I set my sights on Brenda Starr— investigator reporter. With her gorgeous red hair and trench coat, she was an inspiration. I can remember walking around with a pen and paper pretending to take interviews– the same way that I used to look for clues when I pretended to be Nancy Drew.

Recently I was asked to give an interview about my writing and it brought back thoughts of my earlier aspirations. But there was no one coming to my door to ask questions, no microphone put in front of me, and there was no cameras snapping pictures. Instead my interview was done on-line, in a new age of investigative reporting.

I was sent a series of questions and it was up to me to answer them how I wanted. It was up to me to make sure that they said exactly what I wanted; with correct spelling and grammar. Gone was my vision of a star reporter with a microphone and trench coat. Instead I stared at my monitor and wrote my own answers.

And this gave me control over what I said. A big plus is you can think about your answers, you can go back and change the wording. You can control the impression that you make much more than with a live interview.

I think some of the questions were a little bit more intense than a casual interview as well. Over 200 questions were sent and I had to pick 20 of them to answer. This turned out to be fun, and it really made me think about my answers. Some of the questions were nothing like what I would have expected.

So now I can see that my heroes and aspirations as a young girl had to change with the times. I no longer wish to be Nancy Drew or Brenda Starr, but I still think it’d be pretty cool to be Wonder Woman.